This course is structured around the tropes of comedic aesthetics: stand-up, slapstick, situations, puns, pratfalls, and pity. Taking aesthetic and thematic cues from comedians and funny situations rather than from a specific artistic medium or technique, students will utilize video, audio, photographs, diagrams, performance, and sculptural props to create and document new artworks that are informed by the aesthetics and practices of humor.

Concurrent threads of pathos, performance, identity, and language will also be explored in examples of historical and contemporary artworks dealing with humor and, especially, examples of historical and contemporary comedic performance and broadcast. Weekly screenings and readings will be organized by type of comedic strategy or format (stand-up, slapstick, ensemble, wordplay, radio/audio recording, television, concrete comedy, skits/sketches, parody, impressions, etc.) Projects will include self-directed and collaborative artworks, exercises, field recordings, and texts. In addition, there will be a class website which will serve as exhibition space and site of experimentation for the distribution and creation of these funny (or sad, as the case may be) artworks.

THE WORK:

The primary objective of this class is to create artworks and a discourse around these artworks. In the service of this objective, we will read about, watch, and look at comedy and historical and contemporary artists using comedic tactics or tropes. The class is not media-specific, though we will be using video and media as a main component. This syllabus is a living document, and is a plan for the course of the semester. The class should be fun, experimental, and generative.

Note: The website and email/in class announcements will always supersede deadlines listed on this static webpage.

Required, Weekly:

•Keep a sketchbook with notes on readings, comedians, and sketches for artworks, storyboards, etc.

In addition, there is one required sketchbook assignment: (“After” a comedian: Choose a comedian or troupe from the “List of Comedians” (or propose an alternative) and make a work based on the “aesthetics” of that comedian.)

•Participate on the class website, upload work and add links.

Staggered Assignment:

•Report on an artist: Choose an artist from the “List of Artists” (or propose an alternative) and present 10-20 images or 2-3 video clips along with a 1000 word “review” of the artist’s work. (Students will sign up for a presentation day, one each throughout the semester.)

Required Books:

•Sigmund Freud. Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconcscious. (I don’t have a preference for edition. This book exists as an e-book on the Amherst College library website as “Wit and its Relation to the Unconscious.” Given the difficulties of translation, and the strangeness of this text, it may actually be useful to have people in the class reading different translations. I will be using the newish The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious, published in 2002 by Penguin Classics, translated by Joyce Crick.)

•Photo series or concrete sculpture: Make a photo series or video slideshow where the last image or coda causes the preceding images to be read in a new and humorous way OR create an object of concrete comedy (due 3/23)